Al Stone-Gebhardt worked hard in school to make sure he graduates in May, and he spent hundreds of dollars on commencement regalia, but he is fully prepared not to participate in the ceremony.

The 17-year-old, who is transgender, said he feared his high school, Tulsa Union, might use his deadname — the name he was given at birth but no longer uses — on his diploma and during the ceremony instead of his legally changed name. He has had teachers call him by his birth name, sometimes inadvertently, and said he finds the experience traumatizing.

“Being deadnamed just immediately makes you feel belittled, weak and insignificant,” Stone-Gebhardt said. “I didn’t want to be in the classroom. I didn’t trust the teacher.”

The Associated Press contacted the school about Stone-Gebhardt’s fears, as well as concerns from his mother, who felt she was getting the runaround when she tried to discuss the issue with the school officials. A spokesperson said the school will work with his parents to make sure his correct name is used.

As hundreds of bills nationwide take aim at nearly every facet of transgender existence, from health care to athletics to bathroom access, trans kids and their families say certain proposals could eliminate one of the last remaining safe havens to explore their identities: K-12 public schools.

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-students-pronouns-names-ec0b2c5de329d82c563ffb95262935f3

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis′ administration is moving to forbid classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades, expanding the controversial law critics call “Don’t Say Gay” as the Republican governor continues a focus on cultural issues ahead of his expected presidential run.

The proposal, which would not require legislative approval, is scheduled for a vote next month before the state Board of Education and has been put forth by state Education Department, both of which are led by appointees of the governor.

The rule change would ban lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity from grades 4 to 12, unless required by existing state standards or as part of reproductive health instruction that students can choose not to take. The initial law that DeSantis championed last spring bans those lessons in kindergarten through the third grade. The change was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel.

DeSantis has leaned heavily into cultural divides on his path to an anticipated White House bid, with the Republican aggressively pursuing a conservative agenda that targets what he calls the insertion of inappropriate subjects in schools.

Spokespeople for the governor’s office and the Education Department did not immediately return an emailed request for comment.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/desantis-moves-expand-dont-say-gay-law-high-schools-rcna76195

This is insane. Now high school kids, nearing the age of majority, cannot discuss these topics?

If you searched “baby formula shortage,” the top results assume you have last year’s crisis in mind.

“In 2022,” begins the suggested Wikipedia page, many American families struggled to buy enough formula because of a coincidence of federal import restrictions and domestic production problems, the latter exacerbated by the fact that 90 percent of U.S.-made formula comes from just four companies.

But the formula shortage isn’t only last year’s crisis. It’s still happening—not on the same scale, thankfully, and not everywhere at once.

Your local store may be well-stocked, but others are empty or chronically depleted, and some retailers are limiting how much families can buy at once. How is this not over yet?

Domestic consolidation of the formula market is still a factor, as it magnifies the effects of factory shutdowns and incidents like the Enfamil recall last month. But factories aren’t easily built, and market share isn’t easily gained, especially with a product as tightly regulated as baby formula. We can’t expect new producers to spring up overnight.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-in-the-world-is-the-baby-formula-crisis-still-going

Please, let's not complicate this with "breast is best" arguments. Those of us who believe that, believe it. It doesn't work that way for everyone.

A Nottoway mother reached out to 8News for answers after a video surfaced of her son being restrained at school in February.

Ashley Skeens said her son, 15-year-old Kahmaree Green, got into an altercation with another student at Nottoway High School on February 27th. Moments later, video captures an staff member trying to contain Green before pinning him to the ground, face down.

The video shows Green pinned down for more than two minutes, and you can see the student’s head rotating back and forth.

“You could’ve taken him down that way, but you could’ve rolled him over instantly,” Skeens said in an interview Monday. “You don’t have to lay on top of him like that for 2 minutes and 15 seconds… he’s on top of him.”

The video appears to show Green in what is called a ‘prone restraint,’ a type of physical restraint where an agitated individual is placed in a face-down position. According to Virginia code, this type of restraint is prohibited in elementary and secondary schools in the Commonwealth.

https://www.wric.com/news/taking-action/mother-outraged-after-son-was-pinned-face-down-by-administrator-at-virginia-school/

The boy is disabled as a result of strokes suffered when he was 2.

The Tennessee Department of Homeland Security has received more than 540 tips since the SafeTN application first launched in 2019. Now, Governor Bill Lee wants a homeland security agent in every school district to help investigate those tips.

"Our review of [a West Tennessee case] showed that the SafeTN app works, as long as a homeland security agent is available to take the case," Lee said during his state of the state address. "These agents specialize in preventing acts of violence and terrorism and we should enhance their role in our strategy."

Homeland Security Director Greg Mays said the best people to investigate school threats are local.

"It takes someone being there, being involved to really get at capability and intent," he said. "If there is capability and intent, if there is a threat, then we work on ways to mitigate that."

He said their agents would help sift through the reports and help districts prepare for worst-case scenarios.

https://www.wbir.com/article/news/local/homeland-security-agent-in-every-tennessee-school-district-proposed/51-b3daf704-847a-466d-8939-a21674fca7ed

Seems like a little bit of overkill to me. Next thing you know he'll want ICE agents in every school. You know, for every undocumented kindergartener.

It’s the latest high-profile lawsuit over abuse in the SBC and it further complicates a fight over Southern Baptist pastors and churches platforming Hunt.

“The SBC Executive Committee is aware of the complaint against the Convention filed by former SBC president Johnny Hunt. We are reviewing the complaint and will not be commenting on active litigation at this time,” an SBC Executive Committee spokesperson said in a statement.

Hunt filed suit in federal district court of Middle Tennessee and is represented by a Tennessee-based law firm, Cole Law Group, and an Indiana-based firm, MacGill Law.

Hunt is suing the SBC and the SBC Executive Committee, and Guidepost Solutions, over the abuse allegations, which Hunt said in a complaint “involved only kissing and some awkward fondling.”

Amid abuse allegations against former Southern Baptist Convention president Johnny Hunt, Hunt sued the SBC and SBC Executive Committee, and a third-party firm on Friday, March 17 for defamation.
It’s the latest high-profile lawsuit over abuse in the SBC and it further complicates a fight over Southern Baptist pastors and churches platforming Hunt.

“The SBC Executive Committee is aware of the complaint against the Convention filed by former SBC president Johnny Hunt. We are reviewing the complaint and will not be commenting on active litigation at this time,” an SBC Executive Committee spokesperson said in a statement.

Hunt filed suit in federal district court of Middle Tennessee and is represented by a Tennessee-based law firm, Cole Law Group, and an Indiana-based firm, MacGill Law.

The executive committee manages denomination business outside the SBC annual meeting in June. The executive committee, under the oversight of a SBC task force, hired Guidepost to conduct an abuse investigation into how SBC leaders have previously handled abuse reports and treated survivors.

Guidepost’s investigation also found in its investigation and said in its May 2022 report that Hunt assaulted another woman in 2010. Hunt denied assaulting the woman in a May 2022 statement and said he was in a “compromising situation with a woman who was not my wife” and that it was “a consensual encounter.”


https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/religion/2023/03/18/johnny-hunt-lawsuit-sbc-abuse-allegations/70024532007/

Yeah, right, it's always "consensual" when YOU do it.

A mid-30s 4Chan user who lives in his mom's house was arrested on charges of threatening to kill a Florida sheriff who recently went viral for his anti-Nazi tirade.

Police arrested Richard Golden, 38, earlier this week for allegedly making an online threat to kill Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood on March 1. Golden was arrested out of his mother's South Brunswick, New Jersey, home and had his computer and electronic devices seized from his bedroom, which his mother described to police as smelling like "like fucking gym locker," in body camera video of his arrest.

Chitwood recently went viral for an anti-Nazi rant he went on at a recent press conference addressing the rise of white supremacist and antisemtic stunts in his county. While it won law enforcement officer adulation across the United States, it riled up the internet Nazis.

“Just shoot Chitwood in the head and he stops being a problem. They have to find a new guy to be the problem,” Golden allegedly wrote on the far-right image board 4chan. “But shooting Chitwood in the head solves an immediate problem permanently. Just shoot Chitwood in the head and murder him.”

The video of Golden’s arrest begins with New Brunswick police knocking on his elderly mother's door and asking if he’s there. “What the hell,” she says before calling up to her son. “Richard, they’re here. I don’t know who they are.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7ewbm/sheriff-mike-chitwood-death-threats-4chan-arrest-richard-golden

Mom should have kicke him out long ago, the worthless trash. I suppose he threatened her too, though.

Two Black parents from Georgia are reportedly fighting to get their five children back from the state of Tennessee, a saga that began when they were pulled over more than a month ago for tinted windows and arrested for possession of a small amount of cannabis.

Bianca Clayborne and Deonte Williams were driving to a funeral in Chicago on Feb. 17 when Tennessee Highway Patrol officers in rural Coffee County, Tennessee, pulled them over for “dark tint[ed windows] and traveling in the left lane while not actively passing,” according to the Lookout, a nonprofit news organization that broke the story and spoke with the family.

After the car was pulled over, police found a blunt and a small amount of cannabis in a bag, totaling less than five grams of weed, according to the Tennessee Lookout. Police charged Williams with a misdemeanor and arrested him, and gave Clayborne a citation.

But just six hours later, Clayborne—who was not arrested—reportedly had her five children taken from her and placed into state custody, after the state Department of Children’s Services sought and obtained an emergency order from a judge. Their youngest child is a four-month-old boy who is still breastfeeding, Clayborne told the Tennessee Lookout. The other children range in age from 2 to 7 years old.

The state, in court documents obtained by the Lookout, has reportedly accused the family of putting their kids in danger.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3yv9/tennessee-bianca-clayborne-dcs-traffic-stop

Coffee County is middle West Tennessee--plantation country. Questions?

Four family members are facing animal abuse charges in Knox County following a months-long investigation that began after multiple people who hired them as pet sitters reported that their animals had died in their care or were returned in poor condition.

The Knox County Sheriff's Office provided detailed officer reports that highlighted a long list of allegations involving severe neglect and abuse of dozens of dogs, cats, guinea pigs, lizards, rabbits and other animals the family kept in the home.

Animal control officers said they arrived to find the home filled with trash and reeking of feces and urine. Four dead animals were recovered before the arrests.

“The findings were so extensive, veterinary cruelty checks needed to be conducted on each animal and the deceased animals were sent to the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine for necropsy testing (to attempt to determine the cause of death),” the KCSO report said. "If there were additional dead/decomposed animals, they were not visible in the clutter and garbage throughout the home.”

https://www.wbir.com/article/news/crime/family-charges-with-multiple-counts-of-animal-cruelty-kcso/51-106ce195-3e62-4c58-8d51-b8161b7d6d28

They have to call in a hazmat team to clean the place. I don't know how this shelter operates, but in ours, the foster animals have to return intermittently for clinic checks until they are adopted.

Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Megiddo in modern-day Israel have discovered a window into medicine’s ancient past: the 3,500-year-old bones of two brothers, both bearing signs of an infectious disease, and one scarred from cranial surgery that may have been an attempt to treat the illness.

A recent paper in the journal PLOS ONE describes the discovery, which is one of the region’s earliest examples of a widely practiced type of surgery that creates an opening in the skull. The work should help scientists and anthropologists understand how surgeries developed and became more effective over time.

The procedure, known as cranial trephination, was performed thousands of years ago in different parts of the world, including Europe, Africa, China and South America. A 2020 paper listed trephination as one of “the first three procedures that marked the dawn of surgery,” along with circumcision and bladder stone removal.

Versions of the procedure, called either a craniotomy or craniectomy, are still practiced today “as emergency treatment for brain swelling, bleeding, as well as for surgeries to treat epilepsy and to remove some tumors,” said John Verano, a professor of anthropology at Tulane University, who described the new paper as an interesting case report.

https://wapo.st/3yEicGc

Of course this type of head surgery is even older, nonetheless a fascinating article. No paywall.